Lin Shuo carried the bleeding
rooster with him and pushed open the red painted door.
Ever since he moved here six
years ago, he has been pushing open this wooden door on the 1st and
15th of every month.1
Chopping a
rooster’s head off and offering the strongest and most yang chi to the item sitting
on top of the incense table.
Incense table
Photo credit: blog.xuite.net
But today,
today was neither the 1st nor the 15th. Today was June 20th,
the year of jiashen.2
Or August 5th,
2004, according to the solar calendar.
There was
blood all over the floor in front of the incense table.
Lifting his
hand, he dripped the rooster’s blood into a white ceramic cup on top of the
incense table. Tossing away the chicken corpse, he retrieved three incense from
the incense table and lit them up with a match.
After waited
for a little while, Lin Shuo first lifted up the cup passed his center of his
brows, the spill the still unclogged blood in front of the incense table.
After he had
completed the entire process, Lin Shuo lit another cigarette and took a few
puffs. Among the spiraling smoke, he said, “Zhui ye, you had looked over me six years ago so I survived Mount
Kunlun.
I have gotten
news today. Not only did the bastard from Mount Kunlun survived, it had gone to
Heilongjiang.
Why don’t you
take a trip with me.
This monster,
should not have survived.”
His voice was
soft, it was as though he was merely talking to himself.
After he
finished talking, he got down on his knees and kowtowed three times before
getting up. He rummaged around behind the incense table and finally retrieved a
black sash as wide as a palm.
The black
sash wrapped around an ebony box.
Ebony box
Photo credit: jszyzsgc.com
This ebony
box was placed right behind the incense table. It was 3 meters long and 1 meter
high. It’s size was enormous, almost looked like a coffin.
Lin Shuo bent
over slightly, looping the black sash over his shoulder, he lugged the “coffin”
onto his back and walked outside of the house.
Outside the
house, after seeing the ebony box on Lin Shuo shoulder, Anne put her hands
together and respectfully bowed at it. She quickly pulled Wei Xingshan out of
the way so Lin Shuo and his ebony box could get pass.
“It’s all for
show.” Grumbled Wei Xingshan disdainfully.
The starling
flew over to the ebony box, pecked at it a couple of times, making a knocking
sound before he said, “Zhui ye, how
have you been?”
After
greeting what was inside of the ebony box, the starling said to Lin Shuo, “Shuo
ge, I am going to take a quick trip
back to the forest. Since we don’t know how long this trip is going to be, I am
going to tell my wives to get re-married. A couple of them have pretty strong
personality, I wouldn’t want them to flew up against a cliff and kill
themselves.”
“You go,”
waved Lin Shuo with a helpless look.
Anne couldn’t
help but laughed out loud. Then with a serious look, she gave the starling a
thumbs up and said, “Ba ye, always
the gentleman.”
“Women, are such
trouble,” said the starling before he flew up into the sky.
After the
starling was out of sight, Lin Shuo asked, “Which car am I taking?”
“Same one as
me,” replied Anne.
Lin Shuo
nodded and said, “Then please remove the back seat of that car.”
“Oh?” Wei
Xingshan rolled his eyes, “Removed the backseat, why?”
“To place the
box behind me.”
“Your box is
well packed. Just tie it to the rack on the top of the car.” Wei Xingshan
frowned and said, “We had quite a difficult time getting permits for the cars
this trip. Every seat is taking. If we remove the backseat, where are my guys
going to sit?”
Lin Shuo
didn’t even bother lifting his eyes. He shook his head slightly and said, “I
need to watch over this time.”
“I disagree,”
insisted Wei Xingshan.
“Captain Wei,”
said Miss Anne, “We will listen to Mr. Lin’s arrangement. Higher up had
instructed us that Mr. Lin will be taking the lead as long as he joins us. We
will follow his lead.”
Wei XIngshan
remained silent for a little bit then said coldly to Anne, “You are the boss.
Whatever you say.”
After saying
that, Wei Xingshan made a gesture and all the other SUVs’ doors opened up and a
dozen or so soldiers exited swiftly.
These
soldiers stood neatly in a row in front of Wie Xingshan.
Lin Shuo was
a bit surprised by what he saw.
He had quite
a few encounters with mercenaries in the past. Most of them were veterans and
not very disciplined. But this team of mercenaries seemed to be different.
“Everybody
help out, let’s remove the back seat of this car,” ordered Wei Xingshan.
“Whoever sitting here previously will have to squeeze into one of the other
cars.”
In front of
his team of mercenaries, Wei Xingshan seemed to have utmost obedience. Nobody
utter a word of disagreement but quickly retrieved the tool box and started removing
the backseat.
What was
surprising was that the one overseeing the mercenaries and providing
professional advices was a female soldier.
This female
soldier was 1.7 meter tall (approx. 5 ft 5 in), short hair length to her ears.
Quite attractive.
Noticing that
Lin Shuo was observing the female soldier, Miss Anne introduced her
immediately, “Her name is Liu Qing. She’s the vice captain of the Asia branch
mobile team. She is also our technical equipment expert.”
All said and
done, it was started to get dark.
There was a
locust tree with thick foliage right smack in the center of the village not far
from Lin Shou’s house.
Around 6 PM
at night was when the villagers came out and chill under the tree.
___
Note:
1.
Referring to the Chinese lunar calendar here
2.
The twenty-first term of the Chinese sexagenary
cycle. Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%94%B2%E7%94%B3
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